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Apocalyptic dream
A dream in which Enkindel is told in no uncertain terms not to sire children. You hear the screams before you reach the hills of course and as you reach the top with your army, you can see the city below you, about two miles south. The sky is choked black with smoke but it has been for... you can't remember, odd. But you have not seen the sun in... how long? Long enough. A long time. Great blue fires dozens of miles long burn far away, putting great clouds of black smoke into the sky. Your forces are behind you by their thousands, with all of the implements of war. One of the scouts you sent ahead rushes in your direction, he kneels before you and hits his chest with his fist. "My King. The city is already fallen and those in the streets are slaughter-" You look ahead, you see the city clear enough despite the smoke which bellows up as much of the city burns. You see much of what occurs in this city, two miles distant. Whatever you choose to turn your focus upon. A great cry goes out through the city as the invaders slaughter all within. None of this situation seems odd in the slightest. You see a young boy cry out as he runs for his life and is cut down from behind. A dozen brothers are slaughtered as they try to buy time for their wives and daughters to run. A few make it away, most are already dying as you watching. A young man screams out your name and begs you to save him. He must have known you were coming, or simply hoped? You do not reach him in time as one of the invaders is upon him before your eyes... A young woman cries out the name of some being and begs to be saved. She is grabbed... A deranged man has torn out the throat of his wife with his bare teeth. In a temple a number of priests drink poison as others wail that their god has truly abandoned them. . . . . . . . . . In another temple, an old man who seems vaguely familiar tells frightened men, women and children "He will NOT abandon you! He is coming to save you! I swear it!" Outside the temple men are cut down and butchered by the hundreds. You see them still fighting, it seems the defenders of the city tried to make their last stand there but their situation is truly hopeless. You scan the palace for your foe, you see him. The palace has already fallen and the magistrate is no more, his sons and daughters are being eaten by your foe's pets who even now race through the palace, hunting those who still remain. Your do not see your foe but you feel him, he is somewhere in that mess. But he is only one such foe, you have many. None of this grisly sight is surprising to you in the least, you knew it was possible this was exactly what you would find when you arrived here, though you had hoped... you might have arrived in time to help. "....my King?" Your attention is drawn back to the scout, who still kneels before you. A few brief seconds have passed. "The siege finally broke through an hour before your coming, my King. The city is lost those who we can save are dead or dying." Your most trusted servants are beside you at the front of your army. One of your servants says "Put an end to the entire place my King and let us move on." Another agrees and adds "It would be a mercy to those who still live." Another disagrees saying "Every life is precious, the agony of those who shall perish does not outweigh those few we can still save. I urge we advance." Again, the first adviser says "And lose our own for those we can't save? Madness." Another adviser looks to you and says "Your servants are... tired oh King. Surely you cannot fault their loyalty to you these many battles... but what is the point? Can we even save ourselves, let alone these poor souls? We... we should just go my King. Leave these people to their fate and see if we can still change our own. We might yet still find a place to hide." His words are not without merit. You are tired. Very, very tired and with each battle you feel your strength fading... "COWARD!" One of your other servants cries. They all argue on, but the decision is yours. Each moment the situation in the city becomes worse... and worse... and worse. What happend to Snarls As your advisers argue before you, you think for the briefest of moments back to your beloved companion and pet, Snarls. The pain is still fresh, even years later. Dead. Long dead. Which battle did he fall in? Was it in the fields beyond Megido, or when Kitron fell? They are all starting to blend together and you cannot recall. Where is Danal? You try to turn your thoughts away from this battle and towards the past... The pain still cuts deep many years later. He perished when Zepath fell. You were not there, but learned of what occurred after. They laughed when they tore the spear from his hand. He struggled uselessly like a babe in the claws of a lion as they shredded his armor and ate his flesh while he still lived. They knew you loved him and so they started at the tips of his fingers and toes and consumed him over the course of four days. They taunted you with the deed. Many you loved died that day. Your own sons are no more, they perished in the early days of this chaos and those who have not... you cannot bare to think of them, they are no sons of yours. Not anymore. In the early days of this catastrophe you promised many people you would protect them, they flocked to you for safety, knowing of your greatness and power. They hoped you would save their own sons and wives. You had noble intentions when you made such promises and did not think them lies, but in the end you could not even save the men who fought for you. The sky has been choked black by ashes for years and the rivers and seas are poisoned. It is always night now, the sun is only a faint hint behind the black clouds, plants are no more. Unnatural fires, blue flame hundreds of miles long burn in dozens of places across the continent. The last harvests burned or rotted many years past and you grow more weary each day trying to provide for those who follow you now, but what choice do you have, but let them starve? A small voice in the back of your head tells you to do just that, these are not your people, you owe them nothing, cast off the dead weight. You look behind you and see an army of strangers is at your back where once it was your own people who followed you. As your own perished you tried to save strangers and now strangers are all that remain. Some still look to you for hope, but what hope is there when the world has ended? Some of them think you have some plan... but there is no refuge to be found and those lands you ruled are ashes and desolation. They think there is some destination ahead of you but you have not told them the truth. This long walk goes nowhere but you cannot stop lest you and they become a more easy target. You have kept moving, no other options left to you. This city lay in your path but it is as doomed as all the rest. Those who answered your prayers were impotent to save those you loved and now your prayers go unanswered, if any even listen. Do you even bother? Your army feels the tremors which grow more frequent by the day but they at least are spared the knowledge of those who cause them. You hear their blows every moment, far distant and close as they give out useless cries for justice, vengeance, greed or roars of pure animal savagery for those who have lost their minds utterly, paying little attention to what they trample beneath them as they struggle. You draw your thoughts away from the pain of the past and back to the grimness of the present. You call them an army but those who follow you are... insignificant. Ten times their number would not even slow you in the slightest but who are you to tell these men their sacrifices and courage are pointless as the world crumbles at the hands of those greater than they? You move the two miles down the hill and into the city with immense speed, moving through the streets and striking down those opponents in your path, even spending small but precious bits of your power to heal those who are wounded. You are within the palace and see your Foe, who leads in the butchering of this city even now. You cannot make out your Foe's features but this does not seem odd to you in the slightest. You feel his power however and it is great. As you slam into him with great force the entire city shakes and the palace crumbles around both of you. Those within are crushed by falling stone and rock but at least they were spared being eaten by your Foe's pets who perish as well. You grapple with your Foe as you and your Foe exchange blows like thunder. You are stronger than your Foe... at least this one, for now, but not by enough to make the battle decisive or without cost. Across the city your Foe's forces continue to slaughter the populace as your amy charges towards the city stop them. You may yet win but this battle shall turn the whole city to rubble. Have we seen any blue soul wisps rising from the dead? You find yourself unable to consider this. This ephemeral thought drifts away like smoke. Try to remember what happened to Ishamal. You try to think of it and feel great grief. As your heart sinks, your foe strikes another blow upon you. Try to remember what happened to Ashera The sea flooded the land when the depths stirred... the crater that was once Zepath is likely underwater. You cry out to El and your cry echoes across the city. It's people have lost heart but at this... some small, final glimmer of hope grows. You try to restrain your Foe as best you can, using up your power to do so. You grapple with your foe and great destruction washes over the palace but little beyond, though the whole city trembles. Your army screams out your name and charges upon the city. Those who make their last stand at the temple fight all the harder, even as those beyond are cut down. The struggle is bloody and terrible, as you struggle with your Foe and your army struggle with the forces of your Foe. By the time it is ended... Your forces are triumphant but have taken grievous losses. Your army is fled far beyond the city with those they could save. Strangers you did not know, but they were saved. Some. The losses taken by your men were grievous and great and only a fraction of those who entered the city march out of it alive. Those they saved do not number even a fifth of their own losses. You struggle on in the city walls with your Foe, smashing at him and trading blows as the two of your duel. Buildings crumble and the earth shakes for many miles with each blow. By the time your Foe lies, defeated, the city has been utterly destroyed. You rejoin your men... what is left of them and those poor wretches you have rescued. Strangers, for each, perhaps five of your own men lost their lives? Time passes. The numbers following you dwindle as you trudge across the wastes. Each day it becomes harder to make the air they need to breathe. Each day it becomes harder to make water. Each day it becomes harder to make food. There is nothing left to scavenge in this poisoned world and those who follow you in a procession would perish without you. You have long since wandered beyond the lands you recognized but you would scarcely even know your home anymore. Mountains rise and crumble. Seas flood land and fade away. Molten rock flows freely. There is no more longer any hope. Among your followers there is simply the wait to die. There are no cities anymore and no hidden refuges left. There is only the roar of thunder as the battle rages on across this dead world. Each time you fought more of your followers perished till they all fell and only you remained. . . . . . . You look behind you one day and realize... You are all alone. There will be no more to follow behind you, not anymore. There are none left. Your stomach gurgles and you can find no food, nor rest. There are no more plants and there are no more animals, there are no living things of any sort you can find. You trudge on. Some days you fight the Foe, or a Foe, most you simply walk... ....and walk. ....and walk. ....and walk. Without the sun and none you could speak with, how much time has past? How long since this nightmare has begun? When will it finally end? ...step. ...step. ...step. One day you think you smell the faintest hint of fetid meat upon the toxic wind and so you follow it. Even a rotting corpse would be a feast. . . . . . . . You find a cave, or perhaps some crumbling city? It is tough to tell anymore, all the stones of all the cities have crumbled and cracked. You look deep within and descend. You find hundreds of emaciated corpses. They seem partially rotted but do not rot further, the air is so toxic even that does not occur. . . . . . . . . . One corpse looks slightly fresher than the others. He has a clay tablet in one hand and a stylus in the other. The knives spread around the room makes it seem those here took their own lives. Was this the last, or did he starve? You read the message on the tablet. . We cried out to you to save us. There was destruction. Why did you ''sit idle? There was death. They slaughtered us as cattle. They destroyed our cities and they slew our wives and our daughters. We resisted. We rallied to the call of the those with Might and thought they would save us. Yet what was our valor before the onslaught? He swore he would protect my sons. He swore he would protect my daughters. Yet he is slain and others like him. My family is dead many years and my home is no more. The land itself is aflame and the sky has turned to ash. I still hear their battles, I hear the sounds of their blows like thunder, echoing through the walls of the cavern where we have hidden. The others within this refuge have given into despair and grief so now I wait alone. If any other men remain, I know not, I know only the land is aflame and the sky is choked with ash. Why do they fight? There is nothing left to fight over, the world is ended and mankind is no more. I've nothing left to eat and nothing left to drink and if I were to leave this hidden refuge, it would be I who would surely perish next. When my family lived, I pleaded and begged for you to save them. When they perished, I cursed your name. Now, I sit alone and wonder if you even watch. I cry out to you O Lord and ask you, O God, why have you forsaken your children?'' It has been... a long time since you have spread your senses wide for fear you would be noticed when you did so. You do so now. You look far beyond this place for many miles in each direction, you survey the desolation of the world for as far as your senses will tell you. . . . . . . . . . . . . . There is not a scrap of green left and not an animal that walks the land, flies or crawls. Even the tiny burrowing things are dead. The places man once lived are skeletons of crumbling stones and not even the bones of men are gone and dust. Mankind is no more and those places they built tumble, there is no marker for their grave that they even lived. Are you all that remains? And on and on... You still hear the thunder, each moment, distant and close. The thunder of their battle as they struggle on. You stand amidst the corpses and your eye catches a stone knife. You had a lucky knife once, the first really good one you ever made. It seems like an eternity ago. You look at it a long moment. As long as they live we have purpose. Do not forget, there is always a light in the end. Always. There is no light at the end and there is nothing to have purpose for. Every good thing in your life is gone and the existence it ever was, erased. There is no savior and no path. There is nothing left. There is only the ache in your gut and the choke in your lungs when you try to breathe. The ache in your bones, the fatigue, the fear you will be forced into another battle and the pain of when you are. We trudge towards mount Har, or whatever is left of it. ''' There is not even the mountain. Mount Har is no more. It has fallen into the turmoil of rising mountains and crumbling seas. Molten rock flows through the craters left from it's destruction and even among those hot flows, they still fight, their blows like thunder. '''What happened to ___? Dead. What about ___? Dead. But what of ___? Dead. You leave this tomb and walk on. You fight. Some battles you win. Some you do not. Eventually you fall in battle and lay upon the desolate surface of this cursed world in agony and anguish as your Foe does great savageness to your body after you can no longer move or resist. You hear a great noise, flame, a flame of great size, even greater than the blue flames, hundreds of miles long which race across the continents. The light pierces the ashen sky through which nothing has been seen in... years... many long years... You feel an intense flame as it approaches, your flesh is scolding even now. But you see what it is as it approaches... . . . . . . . . A sword. Impossibly large, it dwarfs the moon. You see three characters on the side of the sword and though you have not seen them before, know at once what they say. Law You know who owns this sword, there are none more well known. It descends to save those who are worthy, to punish and obliterate that which is wicked. Since you were a young child you have known who owned this sword. In Athar, on those long nights when the men of the village left and your mother prayed for Uncle Jorah's safe return, you learned the name of the one who owns this sword. And thus it ends The sword descends... it is coming... El King of the World Who causes the sun to rise and to set And brings the rains in their seasons Who was Alone when no things were It is going to strike... it is... large. Too large... His Children watched the first sunrise ''And yet you declare your wisdom Greater than They Who Are Eternal And dwell in the Eternal House at His feet' The sky is nothing but flame as the sword nears the world. It dwarfs the sky itself, when it lands, the world shall surely shatter. '''THUS SMYTHOS DECLARES' You sense power in these words. Power greater than anything you have felt in your life. Greater than any feeling you have had or being you have interacted with. There is no doubt at all of the magnitude, this, is greater. After your seed '''''All this follows Humble yourself before His Children '''''And in your long years Bind the Eternal Hunger Forever The sword descends above you and crashes to the world above you. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . It is finally ended. Category:Visions